U.S. patent application 2005/0013474 discloses a device also inspecting or examining the edge area of a wafer with three cameras. For the inspection of the wafer edge, the wafer is rotated past the cameras more than two times. There is also provided a bright field arrangement for the illumination of the wafer. However, the cameras are not arranged on a common carrier, and the cameras are further not intended to be brought closer to the wafer edge in order to achieve a better positioning of the edge of the wafer with respect to the cameras. In addition, there is no indication that single defects may be directly approached by the device disclosed therein, so that an image of these defects may be acquired by the cameras.
U.S. patent application 2003/0169916 discloses a device using three cameras for acquiring an image of the front surface of the wafer edge and of the two bevels at the wafer edge, respectively. The cameras are arranged such that a first camera is opposite to the upper bevel of the wafer edge, that a second camera is opposite to the front surface of the wafer, and that a third camera is opposite to the lower bevel of the wafer edge. The cameras are oriented such that they face the respective associated surfaces at a right angle. However, the application does not disclose that the cameras are arranged on a common carrier movable in a perpendicular direction with respect to the edge of the wafer in order to position the cameras suitably for image acquisition. In addition, the first camera and the third camera are not arranged to image the upper surface and the lower surface, respectively, of the wafer edge nor to record defects there and display them to the user.